Page 147 of Whisper

Sirens rose across the base. In the distance, through the flames, David saw men racing for them, Special Forces soldiers and CIA officers.

They weren’t going to make it. Al-Qaeda was going to get to them first.

David tried to crawl, but his body was broken, his movements too slow. His ears rang, and blood kept dripping into his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. His leg wouldn’t move, and when he looked back, he saw white bone sticking out of his salwar kameez, ragged edges caught on the torn and blackened linen.

Moments, he had moments before the jihadis were on him. He could hear their shouts, their cries to Allah. The rev of the trucks’ engines. Gravel crunching beneath the tires and their boots.

A group of jihadis split off and ran for the nearest bodies. Carl’s teammates, and one of the analysts. They rolled them over, shoved their rifles in their faces. Fired.

David roared. He struggled, trying to scramble forward. Damn it, he was too far away from everyone else, too far from Kris.

More jihadis lined up and peppered the command center with shots, firing at the corrugated steel shipping container until the building looked like a cheese grater from the waist up. Everyone inside would have hit the deck as soon as the bomb went off, but al-Qaeda didn’t know that.Please, let everyone still be down, David prayed.Please, please.

Shots fired back at the jihadis from the Special Forces soldiers and CIA reinforcements tearing across the base. They were close enough now to fight back, taking cover in the maze of buildings and shipping containers that dotted the base at the end of the runway. The jihadis’ trucks braked hard and unleashed their rifles at the reinforcements, a hail of bullets that shredded the air, the buildings. Shell casings dropped, clattering and bouncing across the gravel. A dozen rolled in front of David’s face.

“Retreat!” David heard the jihadis cry in Arabic. “Fall back!”

“Findhim! Find the one!”

Fighters swarmed over the bodies nearest them, but they were pushed back by more gunfire. David tried to keep crawling, keep getting clear, but he was too exposed. Any moment, they would be on him—

This isn’t how I want to go. This isn’t how I wanted to die. Allah, would you be so cruel as to show me what my Paradise would be with Kris and then snatch it away from me? Would you be so cruel, again?

He gasped, tears and blood mixing on his cheeks, smearing on his lips.

Better me than Kris. Allah, spare Kris. Keep him alive. Let him live until he’s one hundred and twenty, until he’s had a long, glorious life. I’ll trade my life for his. In shaa Allah. In shaa Allah.

Hands grabbed his ankles, flipped him over. Pain, pure, agonizing pain, split his soul in two as his broken leg twisted, wrenched against his torn skin. He roared.

They grabbed at his clothes, his head. Forced him to look up, into a half dozen jihadi faces. “It’shim, it’shim!” three of them cried together. “Allahu Akbar! It’s him!”

Tires squealed, the trucks starting to scream away. The jihadis grabbed him by the arms and legs and ran beside the truck, passing him up to a group of men in the truck bed. He felt weightless, torn apart, every ounce of pain he’d ever felt in his whole life concentrated in his leg, in his severed bone. Bullets flew past him in both directions, the jihadis and the base soldiers firing at once. Bullets hit the truck, shredding the metal. Three jihadis fell as he was tossed in.

“Go! Go!” The fighters slammed on the roof of the truck. “We have him!”

Engines wailing, the two trucks roared past the base gate, rear guns firing on the soldiers who tried to pursue, to chase. David watched the base’s main gate pass overhead in a blur, the hazy blue sky smear into gray, and a jihadi stare down into his face before darkness poured in and his entire world went black.

Everything was too slow, like Kris was stuck in a dream.

Flames shivered in slow motion, enough that he could see every curve and arch of the fire. Someone screamed in his face. He could make out every rounded shape of their words, their letters. See each of the fillings in their teeth. A dull roar had replaced all sound, the inside of a bell that had been rung once and had taken over the world.

He couldn’t draw a single breath. His lips moved, gasping for air. The world snapped, racing from too slow to too fast, a dose of adrenaline coursing through his body, his mind, with hyper clarity and a rush of reality.

Finally, he dragged in a breath and shot up. Hands pushed him back down to the gravel. “Donotmove! Donotmove, sir! You’ve been injured! We’re getting you medically evac’d now!”

“David—” He pushed at the man, a soldier, a Special Forces medic trying to check him over. He rolled to the side, trying to escape. Looked across the gravel.

Twelve bodies lay motionless on the ground, some mangled so badly they looked like they’d been through a meat grinder or had dropped from an airplane without a parachute. Medics worked on two people, motionless and drenched in ruby blood. Kris watched one shake his head and sit back, wiping at his forehead.

The gravel yard, where they had paced and waited for Hamid and David to arrive, sharing jokes to cut the tension, wasgone. Blasted earth, flames, and blood-soaked gravel were all that remained. Bullet casings, a thousand of them. Shards of glass and nails that rose like spikes.

“No,” Kris breathed. “No, no, no…” He struggled against the medic’s hold again, trying to sit up. “David! Where is David? Where thefuckis David?”

The medic fought him, grabbing his hands and arms and forcing him back to the ground. “Donotmove, sir!” he bellowed. “You have a serious internal injury! Donotmove!”

“How many are dead?” Kris screamed. “How many?”

“Everyone but you, sir.”